


our choices seal our fate

by princegrantaire



Category: Green Lantern (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fear, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25321519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princegrantaire/pseuds/princegrantaire
Summary: Parallax does not satisfy itself with soundless echoes in Sinestro’s own mind. No, certainly not. Fragments of the beast have remained embedded deeply in his very being -- his ring, hisheart-- and Sinestro knows a reluctant mental link holds as steady as ever. Yet, Parallax had faltered for weeks, had made him seek out this dismal place in a forgotten sector merely to revel in the silence, to hear the faint whispers in the night.
Relationships: Hal Jordan/Thaal Sinestro, Thaal Sinestro/Arin Sur
Kudos: 8





	our choices seal our fate

**Author's Note:**

> yet another sinestro character study coming right up! i'm apparently incapable of writing anything else. this takes place between wrath of the first lantern where korugar is destroyed and the world famous "that's the tragedy of it, jordan. we'll always be friends." happens and the first issue of sinestro solo, where he's hanging out in self-exile on some weird jungle planet with weird cat creatures. sort of a combo of og parallax take and geoff's parallax take!
> 
> ENJOY!
> 
> PS: THANK U @SLAAPKAT AS ALWAYS DON'T KNOW WHERE I'D BE WITHOUT YA

Parallax does not satisfy itself with soundless echoes in Sinestro’s own mind. No, certainly not. Fragments of the beast have remained embedded deeply in his very being -- his ring, his _heart_ \-- and Sinestro knows a reluctant mental link holds as steady as ever. Yet, Parallax had faltered for weeks, had made him seek out this dismal place in a forgotten sector merely to revel in the silence, to hear the faint whispers in the night.

It had driven Sinestro to find himself stranded here, alone in self-exile and very nearly regretful, halfway used to the heat from years of dig sites across Korugar’s deserts but not the stifling jungle and the animal figures looming in its shadows.

Out of habit alone, Sinestro spends the first few days studying the ruins of the temple he’s chosen as his temporary shelter. It’s an imposing structure, overrun by overgrown nature, crushed into submission by the passage of time. Traces of its inhabitants lay along the way in tattered cloaks, a veritable oasis of necessary resources during long, cold evenings. Sinestro’s expertise, despite a growing familiarity, is not the dead so he does not dwell on old corpses and instead, draws the symbols of the temple on the ground itself, trying to graft sense onto an unknown language by mundane means.

But here, if nothing else, he’s got room to think, listen and _plan_. His greatest failure has rendered Sinestro numb, the weight on his chest near constant and thus no use to a man who wields terror like a sword. His ring, too, has taken a leave of absence -- lacking a power battery and the proper motivation. Sinestro does not think of the death rattle of an entire world because this is not a punishment.

It is a test.

“Your home was doomed long ago, Sinestro. Remember when you showed me what you’d accomplished? Deep down, didn’t you know what would happen?”

_Ah_.

Tonight, Parallax has chosen to sound like Hal Jordan, no doubt in the interest of rubbing salt into a never-quite-healed wound. An easy trick, the creature is as familiar with Jordan’s cadence as Sinestro is. The thought lingers, stings harshly in its own right as Sinestro turns it over again and again, unable to determine where an odd sense of betrayal begins to seep in.

“Everyone knows how you feel about me.”

The words, it occurs to Sinestro, are Korugarian and the illusion vanishes in the blink of an eye. Parallax needs to be understood, there is no ring to translate. Similarly, it has chosen to speak, it is not his own inner monologue that Sinestro dreads.

So, Hal Jordan.

The bitterness does not depart.

And all the same, it could very well be the needed derailment. Korugar stops going down in flames behind his eyelids and, in the momentary respite, Sinestro thinks once more of his purpose here.

The taming of Parallax.

_Would you let yourself be tamed?_

Unlike the disembodied spectre of Hal Jordan, the question floats in Sinestro’s head as if it’s one of his own thoughts. It’s all smoke and mirrors, of course, and he doesn’t have _time_ to waste on awe. He needs to--

The last night Arin had held him close flashes through his mind and Sinestro freezes, clutches tightly the stick he’d been drawing with and doesn’t understand the ghost of arms around him. Then, inexplicably, it’s one of Ungara’s sprawling museums and Abin’s contagious excitement, rambling endlessly about some exhibit or another. Sinestro doesn’t catch a single sentence. The scene changes once more and there he sits, facing Hal Jordan himself, drowning in the incomprehensible noise of the Oa mess hall. Hal’s laughing at something, his eyes lit up from within, and Sinestro aches acutely. Again, reality shivers and the desolate temple greets him.

_Sinestro, you’ve been tamed before. Just look how it turned out._

“You have no right--” Sinestro starts, a sudden gush of vitriol, before it becomes apparent there’s no point in arguing with Parallax. There’s no point, Sinestro supposes, to any of it. No home to save, no corps to return to, a legacy undoubtedly lost to the light. He’s prevailed against reason for so long it’s become instinct but Sinestro is aware of the possibility of perishing in this aimless quest. The knowledge hardly leaves a dent in the unfelt fear.

Memories cannot contain the immensity of his loss. The pieces Parallax has shown him are just that -- _pieces_ , jagged shards of a myth Sinestro has thoroughly outlived and sank beneath.

He leans against the stone wall, absently reminded of the brand still residing on his back. The vast majority of that, too, has grown numb.

Distantly, Sinestro finds some relief in the lack of a ring, though he still wears it. At the very least, it surely narrows down his choices, forces him into relying on the one person that’s always been there: himself. There is nothing like the temptation of a stray cry for help, a further admission of what he’d told Jordan before he’d left. Here, in the jungle, it’s all unnecessary, absurd like the annihilation of Korugar that he doubts will ever quite register -- a permanent phantom limb.

_You will fail. It’s only a matter of waiting._

He recognises it as the truth and feels only frustration, powerless to stop it. Fear has left Sinestro, he’s come dangerously close to accepting his fate. Parallax is _right_ , there will only be one victor in this waiting game and Sinestro doesn’t know how to even the odds. For the first time in years, he misses--

All of it.

No, he’s always missed it. He’s only just granted himself permission to endure the onslaught.

Parallax had never controlled him but the possibility worms its way inside just now, perhaps another ever-so-helpful suggestion made by the creature itself. If Jordan had felt the same way, all those years ago, Sinestro hadn’t been there to see it firsthand. He wouldn’t know.

_I remember Hal Jordan’s fear. Do you? Or have you forgotten his hands around your neck? You could be forgiven, if you have. One doesn’t often get to enjoy their greatest success._

And it’s strange, what goes through his mind at times like these, when he knows very well he’s merely being riled up. He’d felt triumph then -- a rare sense of complete and utter victory -- but now, a decade after the fact, Sinestro doesn’t find the same delight in Jordan’s downfall. Perhaps it hadn’t ever been there. What he’d hoped for, he thinks, had been an attempt to get even. Hal Jordan had neglected to stand by his side in front of the Guardians and consequently, he’d been allowed that final indignity of inelegant murder.

It had accomplished nothing. Sinestro recalls old betrayals, as Jordan himself must do, and all he can say is that he’d like to know where they stand in the aftermath of the unthinkable.

“That’s the tragedy of it,” he whispers, echoing himself.

Parallax says nothing to that.

Another month may mean the end. For now, Sinestro holds on to the faint idea of just what his first stop might be on the other side of this self-induced nightmare.

**Author's Note:**

> find me @ufonaut on tumblr


End file.
